It’s time to finish the pumpkin marathon. I enjoyed it pretty much, but there are so many new products that I want to try that pumpkin can wait till next fall. Farewell recipe is pumpkin gnocchi with sage and cream sauce. I think this dish is a kind of comfort food: it’s easy to cook and, most important, it can be frozen. It’s a nice feeling to know that some proper portions of gnocchi are waiting for me in the fridge. Gnocchi are relatives to one of Slovak staple dishes “halušky” with the difference in shape and the fact that raw potatoes are used in most of halušky recipes.
( 🇸🇰 slovenský preklad nájdete za anglickým textom)

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

(makes up to 5 portions)

For gnocchi dough:

1 cup of pumpkin purée (pumpkin purée seems to be the key ingredient in my kitchen, I’ve made it so many times this autumn). You can use Hokkaido pumpkin or butternut squash: bake it until soft and then mash until smooth.

1,5 cup of mashed potatoes. Tip: make a smooth mashed potatoes from baked potatoes. If you boil it, potatoes will have too much of water inside and it will complicate the work with the dough.

1 3/4 or 2 cups of all purpose flour (or more if necessary)

1 egg

salt, pepper

For sauce:

2 tbs unsalted butter

3 tbs heavy whipping cream

1 tbs all purpose floor

a bit less than 0,5 cup of hot water, chicken stock or water where you’d cooked your gnocchi

a few fresh sage leaves (ok, can be substituted by dry sage but it’s less fun)

1 cloves of garlic, sliced

salt

Directions:

Combine flour, pumpkin, potatoes and egg in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, mix properly and knead the dough. The dough should not be too sticky, so add some more flour if necessary.

Divide the dough into 3-4 parts and roll out each of them into “sausage” with 2-3cm in diameter. Cut the roll into 3cm pieces. Professional gnocchi makers are doing gnocchi with “ribs” made with a fork or a special desk, but I made it more simple 🙂

When gnocchi are ready to be boiled, you can start with the sauce. First, melt butter in the pan on a medium heat, then add sage leaves and slices of garlic. Fry until garlic becomes slightly brown. Btw, the smell of fried fresh sage leaves is just amazing, I’ve never done this sauce before, but I already want to repeat it. Reduce heat to very low, remove garlic, add flour and whisk for a minute. Then remove from the heat, add cream, whisk and add stock spoon by spoon. The sauce should not be too thin. Season with salt.

Boil water in a big pot. Add salt and then add gnocchi. Cook until gnocchi start to rise on the top of boiling water (it takes a few minutes). Remove them from water with strainer.

There are some options what to do next. You can slightly fry gnocchi in a pan to make them crispy outside. Or, if you don’t want to wash another pan, just combine gnocchi with sauce, season with parmigiano and serve immediately.